


Sometime Between Noon and Five

by skarlatha



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 11:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/skarlatha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John comes home to 221B to find a bomb squad gathered around the toilet while Sherlock plays the violin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometime Between Noon and Five

John walked out of Katie’s flat and paused on the sidewalk, pulling his jacket tighter around him and smiling to himself as he looked up at the overcast sky. The sex hadn’t been great, but it had been sex, and with as little as he’d managed to have in the past few weeks, he wasn’t going to complain. He’d turned his phone off after the twentieth text from Sherlock at the pub last night and left it off all night, and to his surprise, Sherlock hadn’t shown up to crash the date after he’d stopped responding. And so he’d had a whole night with Katie and it had been... perfectly acceptable.  
  
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and stared at it with trepidation, then sighed deeply and powered it back on. After a pause while it searched for a signal, it started beeping wildly, texts flashing across the screen too quickly for John to read until they all collected in one notification: _78 new messages_. He swore under his breath and looked back up at the sky, shaking his head and wondering for the thousandth time that week alone why he didn’t just murder Sherlock and save everyone the trouble of dealing with him.  
  
( _Because he fascinates you and you love that about him..._ Yes, yes, but still, he was a pain in the arse nearly 24/7.)  
  
Before John could start reading the messages, though, his phone rang. Lestrade. That was surprising. He put the phone up to his ear. “Hello?”  
  
“John?” Lestrade sounded so profoundly relieved that John had to raise both eyebrows. “Jesus, John, where have you been?” His voice got more distant for a moment. “No, I’ve got him, he’s alive.” He came back to the phone. “Never mind. As long as you’re safe.”  
  
“Safe?” John started running toward Baker Street, only sparing a fleeting thought about why his first instinct these days seemed to be to run _toward_ Sherlock rather than far, far away from him. “What’s wrong?”  
  
“There’s a bomb. In your flat. Sherlock found it and he said you were there but then you weren’t and we thought you’d been kidnapped,” Lestrade said. “Can you come down?”  
  
“I’m on my way,” John replied, then hung up and ran faster. Katie’s flat was too close to Baker Street to justify a cab, especially during the morning commute, but far enough that when he arrived, he was slightly out-of-breath. There were police cars on the street and a large gaggle of people just behind the police lines. John ducked under the caution tape and was almost detained by a very large officer before Lestrade waved him through. He ran over to Lestrade.  
  
“Is he okay?” John asked, still breathing hard.  
  
“Who? Sherlock?” Lestrade sounded distracted. “Yes, yes, he’s up in the flat.”  
  
John looked up at the window of 221B. “Is he allowed to be there while a _bomb squad_ is working?”  
  
“Of course he’s not,” Lestrade snapped. “Has that ever stopped him before?”  
  
John rubbed his eyes in frustration and then motioned at the door for permission. Lestrade shrugged and waved him on, and John went inside and up the stairs. Sherlock was standing in the living room of the flat with his violin pressed to his chin, staring out the window and looking for all the world like he didn’t notice that there was a bomb squad in the bathroom. John felt a funny little twist in the area of his heart at the sight.  
  
“Sherlock?” John asked, looking toward the bomb squad and then taking a few steps toward the consulting detective.  
  
“Oh, John,” Sherlock said, still staring out the window. “There you are. I was just talking to you.” He turned then and smiled at John. “Welcome home.”  
  
John was struck with a sense of how strange it felt: not that his flatmate was carrying on as if there wasn’t a bomb squad in the flat, but that it felt strange how much this _didn’t_ feel strange. He pondered that for a moment and then gave up on it and instead stated the obvious. “There’s a bomb in our bathroom.”  
  
“What?” Sherlock glanced at the bathroom and then back at John. “Oh. That. Of course there’s not a bomb in our bathroom.”  
  
John gazed longingly at Sherlock’s long, pale neck and tried to imagine how nicely his hands would fit around it if he were to just start to strangle the man. “There’s not?”  
  
“Hmm? No,” Sherlock drawled, clearly already bored by the conversation. “Do you imagine that anyone with a grudge against me would be clever enough to get in here and plant a bomb in our toilet?”  
  
John sighed. “Moriarty, I presume?”  
  
Sherlock scoffed. “Oh, no, no, that’s not his style. The toilet? Heavens, no.”  
  
“So there’s no bomb,” John said, just for clarification.  
  
“No, there doesn’t seem to be.”  
  
“Then why did you call in a bomb threat?” The instant he said it, John realized that he didn’t really want to know the answer.  
  
“Because I needed someone to take the toilet apart,” Sherlock said, using his ‘you’re all so vacant’ voice.  
  
“Because... you... needed...” John just stopped and gaped at him.  
  
“Yes, and the plumbers take forever. This was much faster.”  
  
John crossed his arms. “You called in a bomb threat because you didn’t want to wait for a plumber.”  
  
“Well, yes.” Sherlock said. “It’s more efficient this way. The toilet was clogged and it was no use to me, so I called Lestrade.”  
  
John just stared.  
  
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, John. It’s not as if I know how to use a plunger.”  
  
“I’m being dramatic?” John said incredulously. “You called in a _bomb squad_ because you _didn’t know how to plunge the loo yourself_. ”  
  
Sherlock started playing his violin. “I did ask you to do it.”  
  
“I wasn’t _here_ , Sherlock.”  
  
“You weren’t?” Sherlock paused for a moment in the music and then shrugged and started playing again. “Well, that’s hardly my fault.”  
  
“You could be arrested for calling in a false bomb threat,” John said.  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock said. “Mycroft owes me a favor.”  
  
“Oh, he does, does he?” John raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Of course. I found him a date,” Sherlock replied, smirking.  
  
“...a date.” John tried to raise his eyebrow again but realized that it was already raised.  
  
“Indeed,” Sherlock answered. “A date. And judging by the size of the love bite on the neck of a mutual acquaintance of ours this morning, it seems to have gone spectacularly well.”  
  
“A mutual... you know what? I don’t even want to know,” John said. “Get this bomb squad out of our toilet, Sherlock. I’m going to Tesco for some milk.” He turned on his heel and stormed out of the flat and down the stairs.  
  
It was very, very difficult for him not to be obvious as he checked certain necks on his way past the police blockade. He thought of Sherlock setting up a date for his brother and smiled. Maybe he’d let the annoying dick live another day after all.


End file.
